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Thursday 11 February 2010

IN DEFENCE OF A TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM PRACTICE

The rapid rate of technological advancements has opened up the field of communication to such an extent that everybody with access to the Internet now feels capable of (mis)handling the higher and noble duties that pertain to journalism.

Acquiring a professional camera is equated to becoming a professional photographer or cameraperson, solely based on the knowledge gained from equipment manuals.

One's ability to churn out post after post in mostly self-serving blogs has created the illusion that becoming a newspaper columnist or opinion pages writer is a no brainer.

In addition, the difficulties of enforcing media industry standards in the online platform has seen the most horrendous of ethical abominations with such a regularity as to almost reduce the journalism practise into a vain engagement.

The time is right to re-affirm the ideals that should help distinguish between a useful media, a misused media and an abused technology.

And as evidenced by the Robert Hernandez experiment captured in the Online Journalism Review, the practical and knowledge, techniques or concepts gained through mass communication training should still be insisted upon, for a responsive and meaningful journalism to reclaim its rightful place in society.

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